AFTER ADAM

The blood—that’s where it started. When I was a kid I tried to cut it outta me.

— Tank from After Adam

Full-Length Supernatural Drama, One Intermission2M, 1W

This play explores the history of an African-American family—a dynamic, but subtle take on the Oedipus myth as conceived in a working class neighborhood in San Pedro, California.

When Tank blows into town to inform his older brother Boyd that their father has committed suicide old childhood wounds are ripped open as Boyd's wife Ruth, who watches from the sidelines, is gradually drawn into their battle as familial roles and identity begin to blur.

This piece exorcises the notion that we become or marry what we simultaneously desire and loathe. As these two estranged brothers must cope with their father's suicide—psychological warfare ensues in an effort to reclaim family legacy, psyche, and identity. A dramatic meditation on death, grief, mourning and its cyclical nature this play is a vigil to one man's life and its self-fulfilling purgatory.